


una selva oscura

by kmo



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - Regency, F/M, Gen, Multi, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-05-04 05:02:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 9,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5321450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmo/pseuds/kmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of  tumblr ficlets and drabbles, mostly bedannibal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. an absent gaze or touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "an absent gaze or touch."

It’s a paradox, he thinks, a warping of time and space. He can hold her here, naked flesh against naked flesh, bathed in the rosy afterglow of orgasm, and she is farther away from him than she has ever been.

He can make love to her, tease her and torture her with all his considerable skill, but for her it is a pleasure that never goes beneath the surface. It seems cliché to compare her to an iceberg, but he knows he has merely glimpsed a fraction of her—the real Bedelia is buried somewhere, fathoms deep.

It wounds him that she hides from him, in a way he never thought he could be wounded. It tries his patience. Time is no longer as abundant as it once was.

Finally, he can take no more. He touches her hair gently, turning her to face him. “Why won’t you let me see you?”

Bedelia’s absent gaze fills with tears. “I do. I have.” She strokes the stubble on his chin, her hand trembling. “But how can you expect to see me when you are always looking for him on the other side of the veil?”


	2. a stolen kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "a stolen kiss." Set pre-canon.

Bedelia watches from the sidelines of the ballroom. Hannibal flits about, light as Fred Astaire on his patent leather feet, charming everyone in attendance from the oldest dowager to the youngest debutante. The symphony’s holiday gala provides a convenient excuse for her to indulge her professional curiosity about him, a lion of Baltimore society, without incurring impropriety by attending one of his dinner parties. He is still wearing his person-suit, she notes, though this one is a tailored tuxedo the shade of evergreen in the moonlight. The crisp lines are at odds with his hair, carefully tousled—he is the textbook image of the bachelor playboy. She is perhaps the only person in attendance that can see it for the costume it is.

Their eyes meet several times throughout the evening, though Bedelia makes no move to catch his attention. It would be a breach of professional etiquette for her to do so—as the patient it is his decision whether or not to acknowledge their relationship in public. So Bedelia makes idle conversation with the symphony’s new trombonist and tells herself that she is not disappointed.

The trombonist leaves to flirt with the second violin, and suddenly Hannibal is there in his place, glass of rum punch in his hand. “Dr. Du Maurier. How lovely it is to see you outside of business hours.”

“Hannibal,” she says, accepting the glass. “You seem to be in your element here.”

“I am most in my element in my kitchen, but this comes close,” he says, in a way that subtly acknowledges her own curiosity. “You do not seem to be in your element at all. You’ve been a wallflower all evening.”

“I enjoy our symphony, but social occasions tire me. Perhaps next year I’ll simply send a check.”

“Social occasions are much more enjoyable with the right company. Don’t you think?” He smoothly maneuvers his hand to the small of her back, guiding them away from the crowd.

Bedelia lets his hand rest there, the rebuke dying on her lips. She nods.

Hannibal looks up above them and smiles. He gestures to a green sprig wrapped in a golden bow. “Mistletoe. It’s customary, is it not?”

Before she can protest, he has scooped her up in his arms and covered her mouth with his own. His lips are warm and firm and he holds them there for a long time. She has enough presence of mind not to respond.

He breaks the kiss; his eyes are dark, hungry, and disappointed.

“You are using this holiday party as a pretext to take liberties, Hannibal,”

“You are letting me take them, Doctor.” 

“We’ll talk about this at our next session,” she says in her coolest, most glassy tone.

“I look forward to it.” His eyes hold a merry wink—Father Christmas by way of Jack Frost. And then he disappears back into the crowd. The feel of his lips upon hers lingers, an unexpected gift.


	3. the stars or space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "the stars or space."

“Summer evenings, Mischa and I would sit on the roof and watch the stars come out. We had no television—there was only one in the entire village and it showed nothing but Soviet propaganda films in grainy black and white. The night sky was our cinema, so clear you could see the Milky Way, and sometimes even the ribbons of the aurora borealis. I would hold her like this,” Hannibal draws Bedelia between his legs, lets his arm wrap firm and secure about her waist, “so she would not be scared. Mischa loved the stars.” 

Hannibal’s voice is so wistful, that she can almost see him then, the lonely boy who loved his sister. He pours his longing into her, a convenient Mischa-shaped vessel, and Bedelia does her best to contain it. She suspects it is the reason she is still alive.

“The stars were not often visible in Baltimore. Too much light pollution,” he says, scowling.

Bedelia looks at the night sky, only recently darkened to twilight. The Duomo is lit up like a marquee, making the city look unnaturally bright. “The stars are not much more visible in Florence, save for that one.” She gestures toward a single bright star winking over the shoulder of the great cathedral.

Hannibal pulls her closer, close enough to whisper in her ear. “Ah, but that is Venus, the evening star. The brightest and most beautiful of them all.”

Bedelia never knows how to respond to his more blatant flirtations. They make her unsteady, uneasy.  She breaks from his embrace and retreats to the opposite end of their small Juliet balcony. “Venus is a fiery ball of toxic gas, poisonous and uninhabitable. Some beautiful things are best admired from a distance,” she tells him pointedly.

“Like me?” Hannibal smiles, slow and amused.  “Like you?”

“Like us.”

His eyes dance wickedly in the dark as he slowly advances toward her. “I respectfully disagree,” he says, bending to kiss her slowly, once, twice, thrice. On the first kiss he presses himself against her. With the second he unzips her dress and slips his hand against the small of her naked back. With the third, he opens the glass door to their living room, nudging her inside and toward the bedroom.

It would be rude, of course, to fuck on the balcony.

He undresses her with care, and she lets him touch her, mindful of his desire to be close to her, closer than they should ever have been. The stars are not visible behind the veil, so Bedelia must navigate by touch alone in the dark.


	4. Primo--first kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bedelia and Hannibal's first kiss in Florence.

Bedelia stumbles over her words in the  _gelateria_ , the Italian feeling unfamiliar and oddly shaped within her mouth. Her accent is atrocious, she knows, and she has none of Hannibal’s effortless lilt. But she refuses to let him order for her, though she does allow him to pay.

They take their gelato ( _lampone_ for her,  _pistacchio_ for him) out into a Piazza del Duomo thronged by legions of tourists of every shape and size, a Babel of languages buzzing around them. Hannibal presses his hand against her back and guides them through the crowd and up the cathedral’s steps. He takes out a handkerchief and fastidiously dusts the steps until he deems them clean enough to sit upon.  

His eye catches a street performer covered in gold paint and he frowns. Bedelia suspects the crass spectacle has quickened his appetite. “Florence was not so… _commercial_ …in my youth,” he says.

“It’s a Saturday in the height of summer. You knew it would be crowded. We could have saved the Duomo for another day.” It's their first weekend here. 

He licks the pale green gelato from the spoon boyishly. “I wanted to show you Florence. It’s important to start at the heart.”

Bedelia’s eyes scan the crowd. She eats her creamy treat, but tastes none of its sweetness. She’s wary of the tourists and their iphones, of the security cameras on every building in the piazza. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll show up in someone’s vacation photos?”

“Sometimes a crowd is the best place to hide.”

Bedelia finishes her gelato in silence, eyes scanning the piazza, nerves as tight as a bow string. Nothing remarkable—some American backpackers...a German family of four...a large Japanese tour group... a Verdi-playing duo busking for euros. And then, out of the corner of her eye, she spots the dark uniform of a carabinieri.

She tugs his sleeve. “Hannibal, that policeman…”  

“Where?” he asks, amused at her discomfort.

“Two o’clock.” She feels the carabinieri’s gaze grow more intense. Frustrated by Hannibal’s nonchalance, Bedelia takes matters into her own hands, grasping Hannibal by the collar and pulling him toward her for a kiss.

She kisses him, and he kisses back, over and over, pistachio and raspberry blending into a strange but not unpleasant combination. His lips wander from her mouth to her earlobe and suddenly they’re necking like teenagers out on the steps, unable to stop.

“Is he gone?” she whispers, lips bare millimeters from Hannibal’s own.

He nips at her bottom lip before answering. “He’s gone.”

Their eyes linger on each other, but they do not pull away. Something has melted inside her, gone liquid and sticky between her thighs. “Perhaps…”

His hand brushes her bare knee, teasing the hem of her skirt. “Tour the Duomo another day?”

“ _Si_ ,” she hums, going in for another taste.  


	5. Hogwarts AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From heartsfilthylesson: "the sorting hat barely touches hannibal’s head when it shouts slytherin. with bedelia, it takes nearly six minutes before placing her in ravenclaw."

Bedelia shifts uncomfortably in her seat and feels herself blush rosebud pink while the Hat dithers back and forth about her fate. It’s been nearly five minutes and feels like hours. People are starting to stare. She hates being the center of attention.  

“Your thirst for knowledge is matched only by your hunger for power…you’re nearly as hungry as that boy over there,” the Hat says, as her eyes shift to meet those of the polite, inquisitive Slytherin boy she had met on the train. “Are you sure you don’t want it to be Slytherin? You two seem like you’d be fast friends…you could rule the school, a real power couple.”

_Not Slytherin,_ Bedelia thinks. All of the Du Mauriers had been in Ravenclaw, even her Aunt Ida who had married a muggle and moved to California to raise magic mushrooms. 

“Why not?” the Hat asks. “You certainly don’t lack for ambition.”

Bedelia toys with the end of her blonde braid, a nervous gesture her mother hated.  _Because._

_“_ Because why?”

Her eyes meet Hannibal’s–they are hopeful, dark, and hungry.  _Because it’s…reckless and stupid…to let everyone know how ambitious you are._

The Hat actually laughs. “Clever of you to hide yourself this way, Miss Du Maurier. RAVENCLAW it is!"


	6. Bedelia/Alana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A five sentence fic--"Bedelia/Alana + flowers."

Alana had only met the mysterious Bedelia Du Maurier once—a garden party, where, fueled by a trio of deceptively strong mint juleps, she had impulsively kissed her against a wall covered by fragrant honeysuckle. Bedelia, an ice sculpture melting in the sun, had been on the verge of kissing her back, until they heard Hannibal’s bright baritone calling to them from across the courtyard. His voice caused Alana to blush and Bedelia to sour.

At the rehab center, Alana receives an anonymous box filled with handcrafted lotions and creams; they smell of that golden afternoon in the garden and the romance that had been nipped in the bud. Conspiracy had never had a more beautiful bouquet.


	7. the florentine elite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bedelia and Hannibal amongst the Florentine elite.

The Florentines applaud Dr. Fell for his knowledge of Dante, but to his _signora_  they lay their hearts at her feet. They respond to the conniving mind of a Medici queen in her, the bloodthirsty heart of a Borgia that beats in her chest, Hannibal thinks, despite Bedelia’s rather modest origins as a lawyer’s daughter from America’s middle west.

There are moments like tonight when she glitters like the night sky that Hannibal himself nearly genuflects in worship. She is the dark Madonna created in his own image, who has cast aside the infant savior to nurture the serpent at her breast.


	8. cooking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "Bedannibal + cooking."

Hannibal sautés garlic and shallots in a simple rue of flour and butter, flames leaping up from the range to kiss his bare wrist—he takes to their new kitchen like a fish swimming through the sea.

He notices her watching and says with an amused quirk of his full lips, “You’ve never seen me do this before, have you?”

Bedelia makes a half-hearted gesture to act as sous-chef, but Hannibal shakes his head and offers her a chair instead.

“I want you to watch me,” he says, and proceeds to cook for her in silence, a performance that is half-ballet and half-dark ritual and leaves her wetter than she’s ever been.


	9. snowball fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “Don’t you dare throw that snowball--" for bedannibal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is more deserving of an "E" rating than the others in the collection. Here there be porn.

“The city seems different with the snow. Older somehow than its Renaissance pedigree,” Bedelia says, gesturing to the buildings that surround the piazza, every roof and ridgeline outlined in starkest white.

“Yes.” Hannibal sniffs the air, breathes in the frozen cold, sampling the bouquet of the city like a glass of Batard Montrachet. “It reminds me of Lithuania,” he says, unconsciously snuggling her closer. He speaks freely to her of Mischa now. There are moments like today when the nostalgia pours out of him, a froth of champagne.

They pass under the moonlit shadow of Santa Maria Novella, streetlamps and snow giving the square an unearthly glow. The quiet of their walk is disturbed by raucous calls in Italian and echoing laughter from the far end of the piazza: a group of university students having a snowball fight.

“Such high spirits,” he says. “Oh, to be young again.”

Bedelia is surprised he does not consider the students’ horseplay to be rude. “Did you have snowball fights when you were a student here?”

“No. I was far too focused on my studies…and other things,” he says, alluding to his bloodthirsty second life as Il Mostro. He stops for a moment, bends down, and begins to mold the thick heavy snow into a perfect round sphere. “But I did use to have them with my sister.”

Bedelia catches the boyish, devilish wink in his eye, the _jouissance_ in the way he bounces the ball in his hand. She backs away. “Hannibal,” she begins, voice as solid as stone beneath them, “Hannibal, don’t you _dare_ throw that snowball—”

Bedelia does not even get a chance to finish her warning before a great thick ball of white comes whizzing through the air, smacking her between her breasts. It doesn’t hurt, but the cold and the wet seeps beneath her coat and sticks in her hair. Almost instinctively—forgetting for a moment that her opponent is wanted in three countries for serial murder—Bedelia fashions a ball of her own, takes aim, and fires. She is delighted when it hits Hannibal squarely in his smug, arrogant face.

He wipes the snow out of his eyes and Bedelia suddenly realizes the horror of what she has done. Her feet act of their own accord, dashing across the piazza. Hannibal gives chase, closing the gap between them in a matter of seconds. He grasps her by the waist and pushes her up against wall of a darkened  _pasticceria_. His face is wet, red from the cold and from exertion. His eyes smolder back at her—not with anger, as she had feared, but with desire.

“I have caught you,” he says, his tone at once playful and erotic, “and now I will claim my forfeit.”

Surely, he did not play such games with his sister. 

Bedelia gasps as his right hand snakes under layers of wool and silk to tease her sodden center. It is a strange contrast—the heat of her cunt and the cold of his hands, still wet with snow. Without preamble, he plunges two leather-clad fingers deep inside of her, causing her to moan. The stiffness of the leather gives his fingers an added thickness, filling her completely. He begins to thrust, fucking her slowly, so slowly, all the while planting kisses along her hairline and murmuring obscenities into her ear in Italian.

She’s so shamefully aroused. The cold of the air and the heat of his body pressed against hers, the unimaginable thrill of being caught, being _seen_ are making her writhe under his touch. “Hannibal…someone might see…” she whimpers—they both know it is the emptiest of protests.

“You will have to be quick, then. Because I am not taking you home until you come for me,” he whispers hot in her ear, before taking her earlobe between his teeth and biting down hard.

The threat, the tiny amuse-bouche of pleasure-pain is all she needs. Bedelia grinds her clit against his gloved palm, riding his hand in the dark snow-lit alleyway. “More,” she begs and Hannibal is happy to comply, forcing in a third finger, stretching her open. Leather pushes against her g-spot, causing her legs to tremble like jelly beneath her. He grips her tightly as her inner walls begin to shake and suddenly she is coming, her cunt hungry around his fingers, threatening to swallow his hand whole.

When her orgasm has subsided, he withdraws his hand and brings his fingertips to his mouth. Her juices are white against the dark leather, indistinguishable from the melting snow. He licks them clean—he likes the taste of her, she knows.

“Let’s go home and get you out of these wet clothes, hmm?” She tugs at his lapel, lips curling in sadistic pleasure as he shuffles stiffly beside her, the worst case of blue balls she’s willing to bet Florence has ever seen.

 


	10. Valentine's Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bedelia and Hannibal's last Valentine's Day in Florence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is somewhere between a headcanon post and a ficlet. A headcanonlet?

Valentine’s Day is one of the last days Bedelia and Hannibal spend together in Florence. It is seasoned with anticipation and sugared with the penultimate, going to their heads like the bubbles in a glass of champagne.

Hannibal feeds them both a dinner of lobster tails paired with homemade fusili in a delicate wine and butter sauce. A selection of wines keyed to Bedelia’s birth year accompanies course after delicious course. He’s given up the pretense of the oysters, wanting to savor the pleasure of watching her eat his food, even if it is not technically _his_ food.

After dinner, he presents her with a rectangular box bearing the embossed golden mark of a Swiss chocolatier. There is no map to accompany the chocolates, but Hannibal takes pleasure in testing the limits of Bedelia’s palate, feeding her bonbons infused with chartreuse and blood orange, truffles laced with cognac and chili oil as she sits on his lap.

Bedelia expresses her surprise that Hannibal wishes to celebrate so crass and commercial a holiday. Hannibal is three sentences into a lecture on the martyrdom of Saint Valentin when Bedelia straddles his lap and, with his earlobe half-between her teeth, demands that he take her to bed immediately.

“I didn’t get you anything,” Bedelia says afterward and Hannibal assures her he didn’t expect a gift, although inside he is disappointed. She shushes him and tells him to follow her into the sitting room. She takes her violin from its resting place next to his piano and lifts it to her chin. Her fingers pressing upon the strings and the elegant line of her bow draw forth Bach’s _Aria da Capo_ from the Goldberg Variations. She had always refused to play for him no matter how many times he asked and now she trembles the strings like she is drawing out the notes directly from his own heart. His eyes are wet when she finishes and hers are, too, and for the briefest moment they see each other, him without his veil and her without her armor. 

Every year thereafter, Bedelia receives a box from that same Swiss chocolatier. No recipe accompanies the chocolates, but instead a sheet of music. Bedelia pops a whisky-infused chocolate into her mouth while she roisins up her bow. Bach echoes through the cavernous halls of her home and she allows herself to remember him, savoring for one day the quarter portion chance that he may let her live.


	11. Shipwreck Coast- Will & Bedelia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Bedelia in therapy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Will & Bedelia in therapy ficlet I rescued from my wip folder. I no longer have any idea where I was going with this one. Set during 310.

Will watches as Bedelia Du Maurier flicks her wrist to check her watch, light reflecting off her figure as she preens in the sunlight, sleek as a jaguar. “Before we reach the end of our time together, there is something I must be perfectly honest with you about if you plan to continue to see me,” she says.

“You’re not honest, certainly not perfectly honest, Bedelia.”

“I can be, when I choose to be. Especially regarding our psychiatrist-patient relationship.”

“Were you honest with Hannibal?” he can’t help himself asking.

“As honest as I could reasonably be without ending up as a roast. I think he appreciated it.”

Will finds himself nodding, feels himself being tugged along by the current of Bedelia’s forbidden knowledge, the secrets she learned behind the veil that he can only guess at.

“Let’s be clear with one another. We both have intimate knowledge of Hannibal the other lacks. You will try to bait me into revealing what I know of him…and vice versa,” she says smoothly, full of an unruffled poise that both fascinates and rankles. “So with that in mind, do you wish to make another appointment?”

Her insight is near superhuman and he feels exposed and vulnerable under her imperious gaze. He longs for her insight, he resents her for it, and it makes him lash out. They’ve been talking in metaphor for the past forty-five minutes and so he offers her one more; “When I was a kid, my dad and I travelled around the country working on boats. We spent the year I was ten sailing the Great Lakes. Being here with you reminds me of Lake Superior. Beautiful, deep, and cold. Too cold to swim in.”

Her eyes glitter back and she’s more amused than insulted. “But you did swim, didn’t you?”

“Of course. I was a kid.” He almost laughs. “The other fishermen told frightening stories of ships lost. Superior never gives up her dead—other lakes when a ship sinks the bodies float to the surface, but not Superior, the cold water drags them right down.” He looks straight at her and says with venom, “Superior never gives up her dead and neither do you, Bedelia. I know I won’t pry your hard-won knowledge of Hannibal from behind the steel trap you’ve set for me.”

Bedelia titters and a light comes into her eyes; once again he’s failed to ruffle her feathers. “I spent my summers on Superior, too, when I was a girl. My grandparents had a cabin in the Apostle Islands.”

He’s almost baffled to learn her blood is less than one hundred percent East Coast patrician blue. “And did you swim?”

“I did. The water was too enticing to resist.”

“Like Hannibal’s darkness.”

“Shall I set aside a room for you in my icewater mansion, Will? I can put you right next to Hannibal,” she says, inviting and chilling.

Just like with the lake, he dives right in. “Next Thursday at four again?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Upper Peninsula of Michigan that borders Lake Superior is known as Shipwreck Coast because of the number of ships that have gone down there. Will is the ship, Hannibal the coast--and vice versa. They will wreck themselves upon one another. Bedelia is the cold merciless lake, indifferent to it all.


	12. Bedelia/Hannibal- Massage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the tumblr prompt: "“Do you…well…I mean…I could give you a massage?”

She’s nearly thirty minutes into conducting a post-mortem with Hannibal on his latest dinner party (she, of course, did not attend), when a slight twist of her neck causes her to wince.

Hannibal notices the flash of pain in her eyes too sharp to conceal. “Is everything all right?”

“Just a cramp.” Bedelia rubs the back of her neck and feels the tense knot of muscle that runs from her occipital bone to her T4 vertebrae.  Her eyes flick to her watch; just Hannibal and another patient and then she could enjoy a nice hot bath and a handful of muscle relaxants chased with a glass of rosé. “I’m fine. Please continue—I believe we were discussing the difficulties of obtaining venison out of season?”

There is a crinkle around the corners of Hannibal’s eyes—he knows that she is lying. But his voice is all deep, honeyed concern. “You have been in pain all afternoon. I can tell you are finding it difficult to concentrate.”

“I’m sorry. I had hoped to work through the pain,” she instinctively shakes her head and the slight motion causes her to gasp aloud. “I woke up like this yesterday. I thought it would pass.”

“Perhaps you should get a prescription? I would be happy to write you one,” Hannibal offers.

Bedelia huffs. “That would be highly unorthodox. I dislike being under the influence of painkillers when I am working. I imagine my mind like a sharp-bladed instrument…such drugs tend to dull my edges.”

Hannibal smiles, oddly pleased at her analogy. He uncrosses his legs and leans forward. “I have another unorthodox proposal for you, Doctor.”

“Oh?”

His eyes flick downward, making him appear sheepish. She cannot tell if it is genuine or part of his well-tailored disguise. “Well…I mean….I could give you a massage.” 

Her body is aching for strong hands to knead and dig and massage away the tension. It’s so tempting, but she can’t, can she? “You…you are my patient, Hannibal,” she says, a flimsy protest.

“I am also your colleague,” he says brightly. “One who is well trained in Swedish massage. My medical interests have always been quite eclectic. I took a course once to better understand the human anatomy.”

Bedelia weighs her professional obligations against her strong desire to once again move her neck without tears springing to her eyes. “If you are sure you don’t mind.”

“You have helped me in so many ways; it would be my pleasure to help you.” She swears she’s never seen him so delighted. He gestures toward her pristine, stiff sofa. “You should sit here, I think. And take off your jacket. I’ll just be a minute.”

Bedelia cautiously removes her tweed jacket and folds it over the arm of her chair, heat rising to her cheeks at the thought of appearing before him in nothing but a silk camisole. There had always been a current of sexual tension between them and to a certain degree she had encouraged it—transference, she thought, a natural by-product of their therapeutic relationship. But here she was, voluntarily taking down the boundaries she had so studiously maintained. She would not attend his dinner parties, but now she was letting him give her a massage. Ludicrous.

Hannibal returns with a tube of l’Occitane hand cream she keeps in the hallway bath, generically expensive almond-scented stuff. “In lieu of massage oil, I believe this will do.” He removes his own jacket and rolls up his sleeves, taking off his heavy timepiece. His hands gently lift the bulk of her hair out of the way and sweep if off to the side. She can hear him rubbing the lotion between his hands. “Where does it hurt?” he asks her.

“My trapezius. It’s just seized up.”

A warm, broad palm presses against her neck. “Yes, I can feel it. You are very tense. Take some deep breaths, Doctor, and try to relax.”

She does as he instructs and begins to feel calmer. Bedelia tells herself there is no point in being prudish now—if she cannot relax, this whole exercise in vulnerability will have been for nothing. She gasps as his thumbs dig into her back muscles. “Ohhhhh,” she moans, deep and low.

He keeps massaging. “Don’t hold back, Doctor. Vocalizing will help with the pain. But you must tell me if I’m hurting you.”

“Harder….oh…yes…yes…ohhhh.” She sounds nearly orgasmic, but she doesn’t care. His hands knead her back, rolling her muscles like dough.

“Close your eyes,” he says. “Try to let go.”

She does. Fingertips travel up her spine and gently massage the back of her skull, deep into her scalp. She could stay here all day. It’s wonderful.

“I think you’ve missed your calling,” she tells him.

Hannibal laughs, but never stops, his hands working to unravel every knot of tension from her body. “Well, my patients might not benefit from my skills anymore, but my training does not go entirely unused.”

Hannibal’s suggestive words conjure up images of striking socialites and beautiful boys oiled up and naked in his bed. She’s never given his lovers much of a thought before beyond a mild curiosity, but now Bedelia is thoroughly, potently jealous of every single one.

Her body has been lulled into a relaxed submission. The pain is gone, only the gentle presence of his hands remains. Her head feels heavy on her shoulders. She can feel the heat of his body, only a few centimeters of empty air between them. His hands rest, fingertips tracing her collarbone—he could pull her into his arms right now and kiss her and she’d melt against him in surrender.

At that moment, the doorbell chimes and the two of them spring apart like guilty children.

She looks at her watch. How did a half an hour pass so quickly? “My next patient.”

“I’ll show myself out through the back.”

They both dress in haste. Hannibal stops to smooth the back of her hair and longing shoots through her like an arrow.

The doorbell rings again; Hannibal’s lips curl in a snarl, the expression of the angry creature behind the veil. “Your next patient is very impatient.”

“It’s rude to keep her waiting,” Bedelia says, appealing to Hannibal’s sense of politesse. “Thank you for the massage, Hannibal. I’ll call you tomorrow to reschedule the rest of your appointment.”

***

In bed later that night, Bedelia relaxes with a heating pad spread across her neck and back like a hot electric shawl. It’s warm and does the trick of keeping her muscles loose and pliant, but it’s cold compared to the heat of Hannibal’s hands, a poor substitute for the fire in his touch. 


	13. Bedannibal-only one bedroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's only one bedroom in that Florentine apartment.

The flat is provided by the Capponi. “Space is a premium in Florence and European tastes are not as capacious as American ones,” Hannibal explains. “And we are supposed to be a married couple after all.”

Bedelia studies him, searching for a hint of self-satisfaction, delight in the checkmate in their ongoing sexual chess match, but can find….nothing. “It’s fine,” she lies. Deep within her heart, something dark and treacherous flutters like a moth…that yes, yes she had wanted this enforced intimacy thrust upon her, wanted to be left seemingly without a choice, although her choice was made the minute she stepped on the plane with him. 

The first night, he does not come to her. “I have never required much sleep,” he tells her. She falls asleep to the sound of him puttering quietly out in the kitchen. 

He does not come the second night or the third night either. His eyes are ringed with dark circles and his gaze is bleary. She catches him nodding off at dinner and massaging his lumbar muscles–the armchair is not meant for sleeping. 

On the fourth night, she lays a hand on his shoulder as he sits at the piano and says, “Hannibal, come to bed.”

“As your patient?” he asks “Or as your husband?”

Her heart flutters again. The hand on his shoulder burns red hot. “Both. Neither. Come to bed.”

And he does. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only one bedroom was confirmed by the set designs released by the production. It's canon, yo.


	14. bedannigram post s3 au

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bedelia comes back.

Bedelia stands outside the lonely, Shetland cottage, cold wind whipping her cheeks raw, nerving up the courage to knock. Behind this door lay either her heart’s desire or her demise, which were perhaps one and the same after all this time. It would be weak, however, to back down now after so many years and so many miles, and so she raps her gloved knuckles on the door. 

After a few agonizing heartbeats, Will Graham opens the door. He is more bearded and less twitchy than she remembers, holding her gaze for a full minute before calling out, “Hannibal, I think you have a visitor. Or, maybe it’s take-out, I really can’t tell.”

Stepping aside to let Bedelia in, he says neutrally, “He’s in the kitchen.” With a gruff nod, he dons his heavy down jacket and calls back to Hannibal, “I’m going to check on the sheep,” choosing neither to observe nor participate in this particular reunion. 

She glides over the wooden floors, heels creaking on the old boards, taking note of the decor, Hannibal’s own carefully curated interpretation of farmhouse chic. The plain wool blankets and leather couches are so masculine it makes her feel out of place, a delicate _objet d’art_ from another life. 

He’s there, filleting a large cod at the farmhouse table, apron wrapped tightly around his fisherman’s sweater and Harris tweed trousers. He’s let his hair grow long enough to brush his collar–she wonders if it signals a genuine change in the man or is just another iteration of his person suit. 

“Hello Hannibal,” she says softly, hovering near the kitchen door.

He sets aside his knife and turns to her, speechless. His eyes turn velvety and molten-chocolate warm. “You came back.”

“I had to find you.” She takes a tentative step over the threshold. “I missed you that much.”

When he remains silent, she adds, “You stopped sending me recipes.”

“I no longer felt the need.”

His words kindle the tiniest flicker of hope within her. “Since I left you, all my days have lost their spice. I would rather savor my time with you.” She thinks of Will and the obvious contentment the two men have found, the life they have built without her. “But if I would be an unwelcome addition…”

He doesn’t let her finish her sentence, choosing instead to sweep her up in his arms and cover her lips, hungrily. It’s a deep and satisfying kiss; his tongue probes inside her mouth, tasting her, while his hands tug gently at her hair. So different than the last kiss they shared in Florence, the one that left them both frustrated and wanting more. 

“Stay,” Hannibal commands, nuzzling her soft cheek with his stubble. 

“For dinner?”

“Forever.”


	15. Both Sides Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal overhears Bedelia singing in the bath.

Hannibal returns home late from the Capponi to find Bedelia engaged in her usual nighttime ritual in the bath. But amid the familiar splashes and lather he has come to associate with Bedelia’s bath is a most unusual sound. A voice, soft and low, the sound amplified by the marble tiles and vaulted ceiling.

_Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels_   
_The dizzy dancing way you feel_   
_As every fairy tale comes real_   
_I’ve looked at love that way_

It takes him nearly a half-minute to realize that she is singing. It’s a melody he recognizes but cannot name–no doubt something he’d heard once in a doctor’s waiting room or one of those other rare occasions when he was forced to endure popular music. Her husky voice warbles, a bit breathy, but still in tune, he notes with satisfaction. Such a rare pleasure, to glimpse Bedelia without her armor on, doing something as unguarded as singing. And of love, no less.

Her voice turns melancholy, with a weariness that threatens to break his heart.

_But now it’s just another show_   
_You leave ‘em laughing when you go_   
_And if you care, don’t let them know_   
_Don’t give yourself away_

Is that how she thinks of him? Of them? Hannibal retires to his own room, staggering under the weight of these unexpected wounds.

*

She finds him later at the piano, plucking at the notes of the melody she sang before. Her cheeks, still flush from the bath, flame red in spite of herself.

“I didn’t know you could sing, Bedelia.”

“I can’t sing, Hannibal.” A pause, a beat. “You were not supposed to hear that.”

“Nonsense. You hold a tune very well. I enjoyed the melody, but not so much the lyrics,” he tells her pointedly.

She takes a seat beside him, damp hair falling to her shoulders. “It’s just a song. No need to psychoanalyze it. I used to sing it as a teenager.” When he looks at her blankly, she explains, “Joni Mitchell, a folksinger popular in the 60s and 70s. When I was away at boarding school, we used to gather in each other’s rooms. I had a guitar. We’d play old folk songs and sneak cigarettes and dream of changing the world.”

“The music of your youthful rebellion.” He smiles at the image of a young Bedelia with long, pin straight hair falling over the frets of her guitar.

“I was never that rebellious.”

He plucks out the melody on the piano. “Sing for me now. I want to hear the rest of the song.”

She opens her mouth, but quickly turns flustered and embarrassed. “I can’t, Hannibal. It’s…better with a guitar,” she lies. Gently she leans forward to kiss him on the cheek. “Good night.”

*

The next evening, Bedelia discovers a brand new acoustic guitar with a bright blue ribbon tied around its neck in her bedroom. Hannibal does not intrude, but listens from the sitting room as Bedelia tunes the guitar and tries out a few chords, slow and shaky at first. Eventually, after many stops and starts, he begins to hear the melody of the song she sang in the bath, Bedelia’s voice sweet and earthy and girlish as it blends with the guitar’s reedy strings.

 _Both sides now_ , Hannibal thinks to himself.


	16. bedannigram in scotland au II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt "cuddling with snow outside"

Snow falls wet and heavy on the gabled roof of the cottage. The temperature drops with each passing minute. Bedelia shivers in her single bed; she has discovered her tiny—it’s far too cold to be considered “cozy”—bedroom under the eaves is notoriously drafty. Her silk peignoirs were not intended to withstand a winter in remote Scotland. No matter how many layers of tartan wool she piles on top of her thin frame, her hands and feet remain chilled to the bone, too cold to sleep.

Not for the first time, she thinks of Hannibal and Will, no doubt warm and snug in each other’s arms in their bedroom down the hall. Since her arrival two weeks ago, they had not extended her an invitation to their bed. And she, of course, had been too proud to ask for one.

Bedelia sighs and watches her breath puff in the air. Wrapping several layers of quilt and blanket around her, she shuffles over to the heating vent. Her fingertips touch frosty metal.

She must either swallow her pride or face dying of hypothermia. It is a more difficult decision than one would expect.

Resolute and half-mad with cold, she stumbles into their bedroom. Something about it makes her feel small, like she is a child who has had a bad dream and needs comforting. “Hannibal, the heat is out in my room,” she calls softly.

Hannibal stirs, untangling himself from Will’s arms, causing Will to let out a soft groan. He blinks at her in the dark like a cat. But instead of offering to fix the heating, he pulls her tight against his bare chest, snaking his hands underneath her cocoon of blankets and rubbing her back and shoulders vigorously. “So cold,” he says, breath warming her ears.

“Yes,” she sighs against him, so greedy for the warmth of him she could almost cry. He guides her back to their bed, strong arms pressing her down into the dip in the center of the mattress, a perfect Bedelia-sized valley between the two men. Hannibal pulls the covers up around the three of them, and Bedelia lets her head rest against his chest, as she had done during those fleeting moments in Florence so many years ago. He smells different—a new, more woodsy cologne to go with his rugged Shetland person-suit perhaps. But there is something, some kind of _musk_ , a primitive part of her recognizes.

Warmth presses up against her backside as Will reaches to envelop her, the whole hot length of his lithe body against hers. She had not thought…had not considered…that he would have wanted… _Oh_. He pulls her hips against his and she trembling, but not from cold, guides Will’s hand to her breast.

The three of them lie intertwined like some kind of magical beast. She is warm and content…and happy…safe in the snow globe they have made.

“Still cold?” Will asks her.

“No,” she says, turning her head to brush her lips against the corner of his mouth—their first kiss.

“I told you she would come if you turned off the heat,” he says to Hannibal.

“You tricked me,” Bedelia says, feeling foolish.

Hannibal stoppers up her protest with a warm, wet kiss. “You’re here now. Back where you belong. That’s all that matters.”

His lips caress her lips while Will’s hands knead, and stroke, and fondle until she at last melts between them, blood so heated she thinks she’ll never be cold again. 


	17. pre-series conference cuddling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt "cuddling out of necessity"

Bedelia does the math quickly in her head—there are five tipsy psychiatrists and only four seats in the cab that will take them from the chic bistro in Andersonville back to their lakeside conference hotel. It’s a blustery Chicago night and she shivers inside her wool coat; life in Baltimore had thinned her blood and the artisanal _eau de vie_ in her system was no longer keeping her warm.

The cab driver barks at them impatiently; “You taking the cab or what?”

“We’ll have to take two cabs,” the behaviorist from Harvard says.

“It’s taken us nearly a half an hour to get this one,” her companion mutters back.

Bedelia meets Hannibal’s eyes, knowing he is finding their dinner companions as tedious as she is. There’s the tiniest micro-expression of annoyance that wrinkles across his forehead, but it vanishes as quickly as it appears.

“I’m sure we could manage to squeeze in,” he says smoothly. “After all, Dr. Du Maurier is quite small.”

Bedelia feels a flush of anger rise to her cheeks, wondering how deeply laid her patient’s game had been tonight. It had been Hannibal, after all, who had suggested the five of them go to dinner at this hidden gem of a restaurant deep inside the north end. “Fine,” she says.

Hannibal whispers something to the driver—no doubt a promise of a generous tip if he agrees to look the other way. The man simply grunts.

Faced with the Scylla and Charybdis choice of sitting on Hannibal’s lap or that of one of the red-faced Cantabridgians, Bedelia opts for the devil she knows. The cab is tight enough and the gentleman beside her large enough that she is forced wrap her arm around Hannibal’s neck for support. He holds her waist firmly in lieu of a safety belt. The warmth of the cab, the warmth of _him_ , combined with the alcohol begin to make her feel drowsy. Her head, quite naturally, finds a resting place against Hannibal’s shoulder. His chin brushes against the top of her head and a soft, contented sigh escapes her lips.

It’s not cuddling, she tells herself. It’s just not.  

He doesn’t say a word to her as they speed off through the night, city lights streaming overhead. There’s a boisterousness in the taxi that is contagious—five middle-aged professionals transformed into raucous twenty-somethings for a night.

A few blocks from their hotel, Bedelia becomes aware of something hard and thick pressing up against her backside, teasing her through layers upon layers of silk and cashmere. At first she is convinced it must be the metal buckle from Hannibal’s seat belt. But then she squirms against it experimentally and Hannibal lets out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a growl.

He’s hard. _For her_. Some part of Bedelia, the one who concerns herself with APA medical ethics, rages to fling herself from the cab this instant. But the part of her blood that is still humming from the alcohol, that is still primal and hungry and young, is getting wetter by the minute.

Hannibal sniffs. _Damn_. She presses her legs together tightly, but it is too late. Her companions in the cab will not be able to smell her arousal, but Hannibal certainly already has, could probably spent the next fifteen minutes distinguishing the top notes from the bass notes like a master perfumer.

The idea of that turns her on more than it probably should.

And then the cab has swung in front of the brightly lit lobby of their hotel and the night is over. Their companions pile out of the taxi before them—Bedelia imagines they must look like a very sad circus act. She unfolds herself from Hannibal’s embrace and waits for him to pay the driver, waving goodnight to the couple from Harvard and promising to attend their panel in the morning.

The driver speeds away in a plume of exhaust and rubber and it’s just the two of them. Hannibal’s dark wool coat is open and she can easily spy the thick line of his erection pressing against his finely tailored trousers. There can be no denying their mutual attraction anymore.

Her eyes flick up to his and she blushes at having been caught staring at her patient’s crotch.

“Yes, Bedelia,” is all he says, warm breath catching in the air.

“We can’t,” she says, the weakest protest. “You are my patient.”

He steps closer, never once breaking her gaze. “I believe in the context of this evening, I am also your colleague. And colleagues are entitled to enjoy each other’s company.” His eyes drift in the direction of the elevators. Unspoken promises of a night of forbidden pleasure, his tongue and more between her thighs, dance before Bedelia’s eyes. Her knees begin to buckle in surrender.

“No,” she says, shaking her head and dispelling the vision. “Perhaps you can separate the two, but I cannot. I will always be your psychiatrist first, Hannibal.”

A wounded look flashes deep in his eyes, but he accepts her refusal like the gentleman he pretends to be. “As you wish, Dr. Du Maurier,” he says with graceful insouciance before turning his back on her and walking off into the night.


	18. a patient and a colleague

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt "Hannibal gives Bedelia a bottle of nice wine" except my anon actually meant "mice wine"...as in a tonic used in traditional chinese medicine that has baby mice in it. Oh well. This is much more romantic.

“You were missed in Palo Alto,” he tells her as their session winds to a close.

“I’ve found the conference circuit to be one of diminishing returns at this stage of my career. Did you enjoy yourself?”

“More or less.” His mouth puckers in that sensuous way, as if the words he is about to speak are particularly tasty. “Though I missed hearing your well-tempered insights—always so perfectly balanced, like a finely crafted rapier.”

Bedelia steadies herself against his flattery. “You hear my insights twice a week, Hannibal.”

He smiles broadly, eyes laughing at some secret joke she cannot seem to fathom. “Yes, but those are the insights of Dr. Du Maurier, my psychiatrist. I miss the insights of Bedelia, my colleague. And her company.”

His words hang in the air oddly—a bright major chord in a conversation that is usually played in various minor keys. “We can speak about your longing for my company at our next session.”

“I took a brief trip to Napa after the conference.” Hannibal rises from his chair, but does not make to leave. Instead he goes to her coat closet and retrieves a dark, heavily padded bag. “I brought you back a gift from one of the vineyards. A particularly rare vintage—it reminded me of you.”

“Hannibal, please, as a psychiatrist yourself you know the protocol around accepting gifts.”

His eyes dim. “If you refuse to accept it, I will simply drink it myself anyway. So perhaps we should share it together—then it will not be a gift. We are each other’s last appointment of the day are we not?”

“I would still be drinking with a patient,” she says, voice wavering.

“Nonsense,” he says. “You will be drinking with a colleague.”

She tells herself it would be good to observe him in social settings. Nearly convinces herself that she is doing this for his benefit, for the uneasy creature inside the person suit, isolated from the concept of friendship. But Bedelia knows this to be a half truth. Some part of her long starved is hungry for company, for conversation, and thirsts for him to stay against every fiber of training.

“The glasses are in the kitchen. If you’ll follow me.”

The wine is honeyed and cold and golden. It sparkles bright in their glasses in the pale afternoon light, the color of her hair, she knows.

“Orange blossoms and apricots. This reminds you of me?” she asks, curious.

“The bouquet reminds me of your perfume. It is a delicate flavor, its sweetness best set off by spice. It is hard to explain,” he says, uncharacteristically flustered, tripped up mid-flirtation. “Perhaps it was the location. The winery was high up on a mountain—it was peaceful there. The kind of peace I find in my hours here.”

“I am happy you find peace with me, Hannibal.”

His eyes grow a bit misty but then he shakes it off like summer rain. “But I am not supposed to be speaking with you as a patient. This is our time to talk as colleagues. I heard a very intriguing paper on parasocial relationships and I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.”

Their conversation pivots on a dime and suddenly Bedelia finds herself dancing an intellectual rhumba with him instead of the familiar slow tango of their sessions. One hour turns into two and one glass becomes half a bottle. Before she has licked the last drops of honeyed gold from her lips, he’s unlocked her tongue and made her laugh so hard about the APA president’s long winded address it brought tears to her eyes.

When she finally escorts him to the door, Bedelia finds herself slightly tipsy in her Ferragamo heels, her own person suit half-unbuttoned. “Thank you, Hannibal. You made me realize how much I have missed conversing with a talented colleague.”

“The pleasure was all mine.”

“Next time I’ll provide the wine. I have the perfect vintage in mind, a rosé from South Africa that I have been longing to try.”

“Something pink.” His eyes twinkle back at her, bringing a blush to her cheek. For a moment she thinks he is about to kiss her. “I look forward to it.”


	19. only one bedroom II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt, "This is not what I had in mind."

“This is not what I had in mind.” Bedelia’s eyes skim over the gilt and mirrored bedroom, the only bedroom in their new flat, careful to avoid resting on the room’s sumptuous, inviting king bed. 

“What did you imagine?” Hannibal steps closer, fitting his hand to the small of her back, iron and velvet both in his touch. “Let me guess–separate bedrooms at either end of the hall where you may peer at me with your analyst’s gaze from the other side of the veil.” 

“I don’t know what I imagined. I didn’t let myself imagine.” 

She can feel his breath hot against her neck, threatening to melt her down. “You ran away with me, Bedelia. You put on my ring. You imagined.” He takes her left hand in his, enfolding it like a glove. “Tell me what you imagined and I will do it. Our reality will be better than any fantasy you have.”

Another Faustian bargain and she knows better than to say the words–they give him too much power over her. She cannot tell him, but she will show him, silently with a kiss. 

.


	20. post-"How did your sister taste?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "Don't ever do something like that again."

“Don’t ever do something like that again,” Hannibal says in a strangled whisper. 

Bedelia rises up from the surface of her bath like a naiad from her pool, naked breasts cresting the water–she turns to find him curled upon himself, grasping at the rags of his person suit like a toddler would a security blanket. 

“Don’t speak of Mischa to me again like that,” he repeats. His eyes are dark and bottomless and sad and tears drip down his face to splash on the warm bathwater. 

Bedelia feels something pierce her heart–a rare stab of regret. She scored a match point in the verbal tennis they play and confirmed her suspicions about Hannibal’s first spring lamb, but at what cost? “You’re right, I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, Hannibal.” 

She extends her arms to him and cuddles him to her wet breast, rocking him there, a lost boy and a lost man. 


	21. first meeting: a night at the opera

He notices her just as the house lights begin to dim, a lightning flash of gold and silvery grey slicing through the darkness of the opera house. Her profile and the elegant posture of her shoulders would not have been out of place among the noblewomen Botticelli painted into immortality. Her cheekbones remind him of his favorite cleaver, sharp and deadly. He imagines caressing them with the palm of his hand.

For the next forty-five minutes, Hannibal’s sole attention is directed more toward the strange woman in the box opposite his than toward the prima donna on the stage. The latter is a trifle flat tonight anyway.

The seat beside her remains empty throughout the first act. Had she been waiting for someone—a lover—who stood her up? The idea is impossible. Hannibal concludes this rarified creature must be as lonely as he is. He spends the last fifteen minutes of the act calculating how best to approach her.

During the first few measures of the entr’acte, their eyes meet across the crowded opera house. Hers are a perfect ice water blue, the color of a forget-me-not blooming in early spring. She sees him.

Hannibal drifts to the bar, a lightness in his gait, blood pumping with a heat he had not felt in years. He orders two coupes of French 75 and waits for her to emerge from her box, so he may press the effervescent drink into her hand and whisper flirtations into her ear. He waits and waits, but the blonde woman is not among the crowd of patrons. The ushers flash the lights, signaling the start of the next act, but she is nowhere to be found. The bubbles of the cocktail have gone flat and the drink tastes bitter to his lips instead of sweet.

The woman’s box remains empty throughout the second act. And the third. It makes Hannibal’s heart feel empty in return. He feels this near-brush with destiny very keenly, a nearly physical thing, the teacup once again slipping his grasp and shattering on the floor.

*

Six months later, Hannibal holds a small rectangle in his hand, a woman’s name and telephone number embossed on heavy-weight linen paper. He had called the number and been impressed with the cultured vowels, the firm but gentle tone of the woman on the telephone. He had been assured that Dr. Du Maurier was the finest Baltimore had to offer, that she was to the mind what a bespoke tailor was to the body. He had become acquainted with her words on paper; her prose was robust, incisive, her deductions merciless. He had never seen her in the flesh, though he got the impression that many of his colleagues found her so beautiful as to be intimidating.

He would have nothing less for himself.

He rings the doorbell at 4:30PM on the dot. The heavy bronze door is whisked aside by a blonde woman; her stature is petite, but she projects an authority that makes her seem inches taller. Her lovely shoulders are covered by a moss and chocolate herringbone tweed, last season’s Chanel, he thinks, and her hair curls around her face in ribbons of spun gold. Blue eyes—that perfect forget-me-not blue—meet his and she says, “Please come in.”

Hannibal smiles, warm and broad. The teacup, for once, has again come together in his hands. He resolves to hold this one very carefully.


	22. The Duchess & The Highwayman (Regency AU)

The heart in Duchess Du Maurier’s breast pounded like a dove caught in a cage. She could hear screams and sobs from outside her carriage, followed at last by a sickening silence, as the Lancashire Ripper slaughtered her footmen one by one. With a crack, the door of her carriage was thrown open. The Duchess refused to cower before so loathsome a man. She alighted as if she were on her way to a Mayfair ball, instead of her own execution. 

One of the highwayman’s arms grabbed her firmly about the waist, while the other plucked the large sapphire bauble from her neck. His hand caressed the bare skin of her decolletage, raised to goose flesh in the cool night air. His touch hinted that her jewels might not be his true prize. Would he ravish her before he murdered her? 

She forced herself to look at him squarely, chin raised and defiant. In that moment, the full moon appeared from behind the clouds, illuminating the Ripper’s face. He wore a crimson domino half mask to hide his features, but those eyes…deep and dark as a doe’s. She had looked into those eyes a hundred times–amused as they went riding together in Fells Park, forlorn at the loss of his sister, even flashing in anger at a guest’s perceived rudeness. The hands that held her so brutally now had once tenderly led her through a quadrille, had penned the most charming letters. 

The Duchess laid a hand on the highwayman’s cheek and stroked his mask gently with her thumb. “Lord Lecter, is it really you?” 


	23. No Vacancy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pre-series "only one motel room left."

_“Hmmm…it seems your travel agency has booked you both into the same room. And I’m sorry to say it’s the only one left–we’re full up because of the conference. I guess you could try the Econo Lodge down the street?” the girlish front desk clerk had said, somehow still chipper beneath Bedelia’s icy glare._

_Bedelia and Hannibal exchanged glances silently. She had not failed to notice the way his spine bristled in repulsion at the words “Econo Lodge.”_

_“We’ll take it,” Hannibal had said._

* * *

There were a dozen ways they could have navigated their way out of the predicament they had found themselves in. Bedelia could have found a female colleague to share a room with; Hannibal could have stayed at another hotel. He could have offered to sleep on a cot; she could have demanded to speak to the manager. But instead they had said nothing, done nothing. 

(Perhaps in fading glow of the morning after they will tell themselves it was coincidence. But Bedelia and Hannibal do not believe in coincidence.)

And so Bedelia lies in the room’s queen bed, waiting for Hannibal to emerge from the bathroom. She trembles beneath the covers like a virgin on her wedding night, and in a way she is. 


End file.
